PayPal cheating?

[Flex68 10+ year member]

Keep an eye on your PayPal transactions, especially if you're the Seller....

I always try to use a positive PayPal account balance anytime I am purchasing items.

As a Seller, myself, I like to take their fee out of the equation, and ensure that a Seller receives the full selling price of an item.

Just paid a guy this way a few days back, and he PM'd me today asking why PayPal had taken a cut.

Checked the transaction, and it clearly shows that it came from my positive account balance. Checked for any updates on Policies that would now allow them to take a cut: none found.

PayPal's "Virtual Agent" (aka ******* computer) indicated that no fees should be deducted from any payment made from one's positive account balance to a person in the same country as where payment originated. (USA ---> USA)

So they apparently took the fee, just as if I had paid the Seller with a credit card, and against their own policy!

They also enacted another policy not long ago that allows them to "hold" payments for up to 21 days. Without getting into the specifics, or whether or not it is a "good" protection for Buyers: just think about how this would affect you as an online seller, and consider how much $$ this equates to for PayPal each 21 day cycle via interest earned on money that is not really theirs!!

I was a PayPal member way back in like 1998...still recall when they posted on the site that they now had 100,000 members.

Things have **** sure gone downhill since then.

Now, it seems that making legit money (hand over freaking fist) isn't quite enuff for them....

Summary / Cliff's Notes

Watch for them to be deducting non-legit fees from you when you sell items;

Know that they "can" hold your payment for up to 21 days, tho I think this may be almost exclusively done with eBay transactions...at least at this point.

Click to read more...

 

[kramer_212 10+ year member]

note taken. thanks.

 

[pro-rabbit 5,000+ posts]

They also have the right to lock your account for any reason for up to 60 days. All though we use Paypal we do weakly withdraws to keep our balance relatively low. If payments are held then we also do not do anything until they clear.

 

[Flex68 10+ year member]

They also have the right to lock your account for any reason for up to 60 days.

Very true, and I have read more than one ugly story about this, and the results for high-end/high-volume Sellers.

The deducting of a fee from a "liquid money" transaction was the first I have experienced, tho....but def makes me wonder how many other times it has happened , and simply didn't get noticed

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

I had to threaten legal action against them to make them free up my account. There's some huge threads, or used to be, on their message boards about holding funds. What's extra shady is how Ebay owns them and they both take a cut from your sales.

 

[Flex68 10+ year member]

Here is what I just heard back from the Seller:

Talked to Paypal on the phone (what fun that was, barely spoke english) and found out what happened. Since I created an invoice so it would provide protection for your purchase/my sale, AND since you paid as a "payment for goods" instead of a "personal payment" is why the fee was charged.

So their website lied to us (I did "AskSarah" as well).

Every time you choose "Payment for Goods" you get charged the fee. [but] if you have been paying with personal payments, you do not have buyer protection from Paypal.

13.3 Ineligible Items. PayPal Purchase Protection only applies to PayPal payments for certain tangible, physical goods. Payments for the following are not eligible for reimbursement under PayPal Purchase Protection:

Intangible items, including Digital Goods

Services

Real estate, including residential property

Businesses

Vehicles, including motor vehicles, motorcycles, caravans, aircraft and boats

Custom made items

Travel tickets, including airline flight tickets

Items prohibited by the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy

Items which you collect in person, or arrange to be collected on your behalf, including at the retail point of sale

Items that violate eBay’s Prohibited or Restricted Items Policy

Industrial machinery used in manufacturing

Items equivalent to cash, including prepaid or gift cards

PayPal Direct Payments

Virtual Terminal Payments

Personal Payments

So, it seems the monopolizing bastards are going to get their money , one way or the other.

If you choose to attempt to 'subvert' their fee by choosing to make it a Personal Payment, they won't offer Buyer protection;

if you pay from your positive account balance, and send it as Payment for Goods or Services, they get their fee just as if it came from using a credit card, but the Buyer is protected.

In short: One of you gets screwed, either way

 

[brodeisel 10+ year member]

dwolla

 

[Flex68 10+ year member]

Point.

But u say, "Imma send you a Dwolla payment" and erbody be like, "WTF is Dwolla?! I want PayPal'd."

lmao.

 

[skitzafit 10+ year member]

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[Imtjnotu 5,000+ posts]

there needs to be a solid alternative to pay pal

 

[UnderFire 10+ year member]

Same man who started Elemental Designs? Trippy...

 

[Imtjnotu 5,000+ posts]

Same man who started Elemental Designs? Trippy...

no he has that other over the internet pay service

 

[J31Rob 5,000+ posts]

Probably as successful as eDuh.

 

[J31Rob 5,000+ posts]

..and get over the fees. They're allowing you to pass money via them and insuring it. Pay their fee or send as gift w/out insurance. Simple.

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

My biggest issue with them is that they can freeze accounts with no reason. There was some guy on their mb that contacted his lawyer and had a letter sent to paypal because apparently that's not legal for them to do, they're not a bank they're just a middle man passing the funds along. He got them to release his money and posted what was wrote to them so we could use it too. I used it and my account was unlocked that evening.